Heart Beat
by the-vampire-act
Summary: Hotch/Reid. Tags to Corazon. When it all becomes too much for Reid to handle, he 'goes out' for help. Fortunately, he's being followed. Angst-ahoy!


**Heart Beat**

'_**The mind's a terrible thing to waste, but in my opinion, it would mean nothing without the heart, anyways.' -Anonymous **_

Spencer Reid was a genius. He was the son of a paranoid schizophrenic and an absentee father. He was an FBI profile and a trouble magnet. Above it all, although he knew almost everything there was to know about education and was perfect and merely everything he did, he was human, and humans weren't exempt to error.

Those were what Spencer was, not _who _he was.

"Hi, I'm Spencer Reid."

The titles were dropped on purpose, as those too were what he _was_, and they weren't necessarily _who _he was- or wanted to be-tonight.

"I'm an ex-addict."

There it was, Spencer thought, his first 'was' for the night.

"Hello, Spencer," a choir of supposed supporters mumbled. One voice in particular stood out to Spencer, though, and his eyes immediately flickered to the man's face. Biting down his panic, he immediately shifted his gaze elsewhere while nervously playing with the beaded bracelet that laid nimbly on his wrist. The man in the audience watched as the younger man fingered each bead, nodding his head in reassurance.

"Why are you here today, Spencer?" the supposed leader of the group asked.

Spencer dumbly blinked. Then, without knowing it, he said, "Because I'm in a shit-load of trouble, and to top it all off, I unfortunately know how great the feel of needles against skin can be." Shocked by the snarl in his own words, Spencer turned around and wiped a hand over his face. Coming was a mistake; he knew that he was being followed, and he knew that he'd show up here….

And he knew he'd lose all self-control after he'd see Aaron Hotchner staring him down in the florescent lighting of the needless self-help group.

"What kind of trouble?" the too polite and too curious 'volunteer leader' asked. Hotch swore that if the man crossed his legs and folded his hands over top of them one more time he'd reach for the gun in his shoe that the idiotic security had blindly missed and end the horror himself. 'Note to self: Never let Spencer come back to this hell hole.'

"This is my first time in the group," Spencer sighed, "I'd rather not dump all my issues in the open yet."

'He's good,' Hotch thought, 'he saw me following him and changed groups last minute. He's not going to tell them anything.' That little thought defeated his whole purpose of the night: find out what the hell was wrong with Reid.

"Of course; we'll be here for you when you're ready," the man replied, "but will you please state what you were addicted to?"

Reid smacked his lips together and turned his gaze back on Hotch. "Sex," he sneered.

"I thought you said something about a needle….?"

"I lied," Reid glared, "That's what addicts do, remember?" he spat. Then, without warning, he threw off his name tag and dashed out of the room. Hotch unsurprisingly followed behind him. His fingers fumbled for the correct key as they carelessly threw each one in the small hole into the door and finally clicked in success. When Reid finally got it open, though, Hotch had his wrists in either of his warm hands, and Reid was suddenly reminded of how easily Hotch could dominate him. Unsure of why that both aroused him and worried him, he let Hotch close the door of his car and lead him to his own car. "We can get it in the morning," Hotch mumbled, "but tonight you're staying with me." Not in the mood to argue, Reid decided to just ignore Hotch and roll into a ball. He faced himself toward the window and used his coat as a make-shift blanket. "I live less than an hour away," Hotch sighed.

"Yeah, I know."

~* HB *~

Unsurprisingly, when Hotch pulled up in his driveway, Spencer was sound asleep. Slamming the car door shut behind him, he carried the younger man to porch, and only then did he realize that he reeked of alcohol. Sighing, he pushed his door open and laid him down on his couch. He was suddenly glad that Jack was at his aunt's house for the night.

Startled by the sound of his phone ringing, Hotch immediately answered it so Reid wouldn't wake up. "Hello?"

"You followed him, didn't you?"

Hotch paused before replying. 'Damn, I really have to get better at this 'blending in' part of stalking.' Knowing that lying to a profiler was useless, he just nodded his head. "Yeah Dave, I followed him."

"And?"

"And now he's passed out drunk on my couch after I forced him home with me from some addiction anonymous group," he sighed.

"Is he still wearing it?"

Hotch looked down at Reid's thin wrists- as if that was the only thing that was thin about him!- and reconfirmed with himself that Reid was still wearing it. "Yeah, and that's what worries me."

"Need reinforcements?" Rossi offered, and Hotch knew damn well that it wasn't a joke, either.

"No, I've already pushed him too much tonight, and besides, sleeping Reid is much more easy to deal with than drunk Reid."

"Alright, just call if things get-"

"Hotch?"

"Damn, he's awake now," Hotch sighed. "I'll call you in the morning, all right?"

"I'll be waiting." Then, Rossi hung up.

Throwing his phone down, Hotch made his way to the couch to find Reid half naked with most innocent look in his face. Reid's face soon went crimson, though, and his elegant hands moved the blanket Hotch had thrown over him just minutes before over his pale chest. "Sorry, I-I wasn't really sure where I was for a second," he admitted, "even if I know that you drove me here not even half an hour ago."

"That's fine," Hotch reassured. "It happens to the best of us."

"And the worst," Reid noted dully. Seeing the younger man on his couch so thin and so pale made Hotch have to work twice as hard as usual to keep from hugging him closer and closer to him. He knew that the urge had to be controlled, though, if he was ever going to get Reid to open up to him. "I'm sorry," Spencer whispered.

"Don't be," Hotch smiled. Reid tried to mimic the smile, but it turned out as a grimace. So instead, he patted the couch next to him and waited for Hotch to sit down, and when he did, he leaned his head against Hotch's chest, the blanket still pulled tightly against his body.

"I'm not wearing anything," Reid blurted.

"Oh?" Hotch asked, praying that his voice hadn't cracked. His eyes scanned the floor, and for the first time since reentering the room, he realized that Reid's clothes were in fact laying in a neat and folded pile on the floor opposite of the couch. "You're lying- you're wearing the bracelet Julio gave you."

"It's somehow supposed to protect me, so I think you can understand why I wouldn't take that off," he mumbled sleepily.

"What do you need protection from?" Hotch asked.

Reid lazily raised his eyebrow, a slight smirk on his face. "I'm sure you know by now," he replied, "and you're probably just asking because you're just as afraid of it as I am."

"You're not your mother," Hotch replied curtly.

"Yeah, I know," he sighed. Then, unexpectedly, he climbed onto Hotch so he could more easily lay his head down on him. He placed his hands close to his face, as if trying to burry it in them, and nuzzled closer for comfort. "But tonight," he started, his eyes closing halfway through sentence, "you can protect me."

Hotch instinctively reached for Spencer's hair and started stroking it, earning a satisfied moan from Reid. Rocking the boy into sleep, Hotch pulled the blanket Spencer was wearing up over his shoulders and watched as the younger man shivered. "Do you want more blankets?"

The only response he received, though, was the even sound of Spencer's breathing as his heart too calmed down its beating. Deducing that he had fallen to sleep, Hotch pulled his feet onto the couch and embraced the cuddling.

His interrogations would have to wait until tomorrow, because at the moment, Spencer's heart was more important than his head.

~* HB *~


End file.
